


These Visions Did Appear

by PortiaAdams



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, but SAD fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27157879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PortiaAdams/pseuds/PortiaAdams
Summary: Hannah finally makes it to Paris.
Relationships: Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma
Comments: 43
Kudos: 72





	These Visions Did Appear

When she wakes, her neck hurts. It makes sense. Moving the children out and preparing the house to be boarded up was taking its toll. She rubs it as they walk around the house, making final plans for their last days here at Bly.

"I can't just go to Paris," she tells him as together they cover yet another chair with a dust cloth. For the first time, she thinks, the house actually looks haunted, the furniture itself now only suggestions of what each piece used to be. Each piece looks the same, the individuality of each erased and replaced with the blankness of the beige cloth.

"Why?" he asks, and the eagerness in his eyes warms her. "How can it be a batter place if I must deal with the French Revenue Service on my own?"

The rough canvas of the dust cloth scratches against her hand as she considers this. Left alone, he might well run up more in fines for his bookkeeping (after all, she's the one who sees the kitchen accounts) than he would make in profit his first year.

"Also, I need you to make it beautiful," he tells her sincerely. "It should look like one of your outfits."

It's going to be beautiful, she thinks, because it's going to be built around your personality and your food. It will be warm and lovely, just like you. It will make even Paris more beautiful.

"Also, I need you, love," he says, and she lets go of the dust cloth.

* * *

When she wakes, her neck hurts. It makes sense. They'd barely rested since they arrived in Paris. They found the perfect building in an arrondissement that felt like a real neighborhood but was close enough to Paris’s tourist sections that they feel confident they will have a wide range of clientele. 

Hannah watches the street traffic from a cafe a block over from their building while Owen meets with some of the myriads of inspectors who must agree that the kitchen is up to code. Lots of young families, students, and a surprising number of Americans pass by the cafe. Young ones. Must be hostels in the area, she muses. Americans would like a restaurant with character where everyone spoke English. So would a lot of British people, come to think. These tourists would be a good source of revenue for the restaurant. 

Sir Henry had been very generous with their severance packets. And she has the money from her house, and Owen has money from his mother. They could really do this, she thinks as she warms her hands around a mug of tea. They could make Owen’s restaurant a reality, and she could spend her days listening to the sounds of Paris. 

She could spend her days with Owen.

Owen bounds up the street toward her, his fists balled in the pockets of his leather jacket. It's good news, Hannah knows, because Owen's eyes are shining. 

"The grease trap is up to code and there's already a complete ventilation system," he tells her as he sits down across from her. He orders half the menu to see out what people are eating in the neighborhood. The table is soon filled by a pot of tea that is better than the ones Dani would brew (but not by much), and a wide selection of pastries.

"Well, this is certainly not tea-rrific," Owen says when he tries a cup.

Hannah stares at him and bites her lip to keep from smiling. "Why must you speak, love?"

They walk back to the building. Their building, she thinks and feels almost giddy with excitement. Owen's hand slips into hers as he helps her step over the pile of lumber where their bar will soon be. The ghost of another inhabitant of this place, she thinks. A restaurant that didn't make it. But that restaurant didn't have Owen. 

She can see the dining room as it will soon look. Pumpkin colored walls, she thinks. It will be so warm and deliciously cozy in the candlelight. Olive green velvet upholstery. A marble-topped bar. Mahogany furniture. Candles, scentless ones so all the customers' smell is the food, on all the tables. Art deco era brass lighting already hung from the pressed copper ceiling, and it was just...perfectly splendid. Hannah smiled at the thought and sent a burst of love to little Flora in Manhattan. 

Her mind returned to planning the front of the house. They would purchase big, modern white plates that would allow the beauty of Owen's plating to shine. Nice heavy silverware, too, so that the tactile experience of eating was almost as lovely as the taste. 

Here was where the hostess stand could go, she considers as she plans the details of the seating area. Lots of two tops for couples, but instead of square four-tops they will source round tables. So much nicer when you wanted to chat over your dinner, Hannah muses as she and Owen walk towards the hidden staircase. They could do a long banquette along the western wall. That would work well for really large parties.

"There are two flats upstairs," Owen reminds her. "You must have the one you like best."

They are still holding hands as they walk into the first flat. Empty bookshelves line one wall and a mushroom colored sofa sits in front of the window, but otherwise the apartment is bare. The kitchen is quite small but the bathroom features a clawfoot tub. Hannah can imagine the warmth of the water when she submerges her body. Perhaps it would work out the cramp in her neck.

“You should take this one,” he tells her.

“Ah, but your cookbooks will need a home when they arrive,” Hannah answers. “These shelves are big and deep. They are meant for your books.”

When he doesn’t answer, she sits on the sofa and tugs on his hand so he sits down with her. She kicks off her sensible loafers, tucks her feet underneath her, and leans her head against him. She feels more than she hears Owen sigh, and his head is soon propped against hers.

“I suppose my books could live down here with you. Perhaps you’d let me come visit them.”

“Well, yes, or you could live down here with your books.”

“The other flat isn’t as nice. You should really…”

Hannah lifts her head to look straight at him. “You, and me, and your books. We could all live in this flat. Together.”

Owen doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Hannah, love, I…”

The scent of him has always captivated her. He smells like his kitchen smells-clean, warm, inviting. Like someone made the most amazing meal of their lives, and then quickly set the kitchen back to rights. For a moment she just buries her face in his neck and breathes it in. The skin of his fingers is slightly scarred from errant knife cuts and hot pans, but when he carefully traces the back of her neck it’s the most gentle sensation she’s ever known. She opens her mouth and sighs against his skin, and that’s when she tastes him for the first time. Musk and rain and cinnamon, she thinks as her tongue traces a trail up from his neck and across the abrasive stubble of his face. I’ve never kissed a man with a mustache before she realizes in the second before Owen turns his face and captures her mouth with his own. 

For a long time it is just that, two old friends kissing, but then slowly their hands start to move. Almost as if by their own will. Hannah slides her hands across the soft, well-laundered chambray of his button down shirt and pushes the heavy leather jacket off his shoulders and down his arms. His breath hitches as he slips his hand under her dark gray cowl neck sweater up to the delicate silk and lace of her bra.

Hannah leans into his touch. Of course he’s good at this, she thinks. I’ve seen him knead bread, it’s not terribly different. Then she forgets to think. They are pulling at each other’s clothes, pulling at their own, and then both almost fall off the sofa when he tries to pull Hannah’s sweater over her head.

“We do have two hotel rooms not that far away…” she says, trying to be sensible but already missing the feel of his breath on her face.

“If you want, love,” he says, his hand hesitating on his belt.

No, I don’t, she thinks. She stands up, and pulls the cushions from the sofa and throws them on the battered hardwood floor. Owen smiles at her and then trips trying to kick his shoes off and pull his jeans off at the same time. They are both laughing when they fall back on the cushions, but then the laughter stops as the clothes fall away and what’s left is just them.

But this is what it should be, Hannah thinks as Owen’s hand curls around the back of her head to pull her close. Full of laughter and love. No darkness. Just light. 

They lay there for a very long time. Neither wants to go back to the hotel, not now that everything feels so real. They want to stay in their flat, above their restaurant. Eventually, they dress and walk to BHV where they order a bed that by some miracle is available to be delivered that evening. Hannah picks out linens (she has deep feelings about thread count and fabric composition) while Owen chooses kitchenware for their flat kitchen.

Slowly over the next weeks they fill the apartment. The things they had shipped over from Britain, treasures from their walks through the flea market, and a painting from someone’s trash pile that Owen carries home after they spot it on a walk all combine to make the flat theirs. Flora sends them a picture she drew of the two of them in front of what they assume is the Eiffel Tower. Owen frames it and hangs it with the same seriousness he hangs their other artwork. 

They keep the sofa.

* * *

When she wakes her neck hurts, but that makes sense. She wakes as she usually does, her head on Owen’s arm. It makes her neck cramp, but it’s worth it she thinks as she pushes back against his warm bulk. Owen kisses her shoulder before he gets up. She hears him in the shower, so she trudges into the kitchen to start brewing a pot. 

Although they are both in the restaurant all night they barely have a chance to say anything other than checking in about the specials and what items need to be eighty-six’d from the menu. But now it is her favorite time. She’s released the front of the house staff and is sitting at their table in the back corner of the restaurant with the reservation book and the evenings receipts in front of her. She smiles as she adds up the night’s takings. Pappardelle with Spring Vegetables was a good special. The food cost was low but it was quite popular and the profit margin high.

She slides her feet from the pumps-which now pinch-and rubs her neck as she finishes her figures. The sounds from below grow quieter as the kitchen staff leave one by one. Only the young porter, who is finishing with the trash, and Owen remain. Owen is making sure everything is perfect for the pastry chef, who will arrive early in the morning while they sleep.

The feel of his presence is apparent to her before she hears the familiar sound of his feet on the wooden floor of the dining room. She can also smell the garlic, the wine, the root vegetables and the chicken of the dish he’s carrying with him.

“Tomorrow nights special, coq au vin blanc,” he says as he slides the plate on the table and then tips her head back to kiss her before sitting across from her. “Good night?”

Hannah smiles. “The customers love you.”

“I’m quite fetching, you know,” he answers. “But I think our beguiling hostess is the real draw.”

Their hands meet over the table. Hannah smiles with satisfaction. “I lo…”

* * *

When she wakes her neck hurts. Owen is asleep on the sofa, so she reaches for the blanket they keep on the chair to cover him with, but it’s not there. 

Nor does her purse hang on the antique coat tree they found at the flea market that very first weekend the building was theirs. 

Of course, Hannah thinks. Because she was there, but not really. Only in her dreams did she pick out upholstery material for the dining room chairs and write out the daily specials on the menu board. In reality, Owen did those things alone.

Well, she thinks, she’s whispered some things in his ear. She’d kept him away from those awful lacquer dining chairs he’d considered, and made sure he didn’t hire the bookkeeper who made her think of Peter Quint.

She shouldn’t be so close to Owen but she can’t resist basking in his presence. Plus, his neck is going to hurt terribly if he keeps sleeping in that position. 

“Owen, love, lets go to bed,” she whispers into his ear. 

A few moments later Owen sits up and rubs his eyes before he pads off toward bed. Hannah is already folding away into a memory, so she doesn’t hear him whisper “good night, love.”

Nor does she see the tears on his cheeks.


End file.
